Guild Wars 2

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

I want to feel that I’ve “completed” a game within 50-80 hours(not 100% it. just completing it. in gw2 terms it would be reaching 80 and getting a full set of exotics, for me). and yes, I realize that’s not typical for mmos, but it’s still what I’d prefer.

50-80 hours to 80 and full set of exotics??? and yet here I am, 120 hours, level 70.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

note that I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying the reasons I’m glad A-Net made GW2 the way it is. It’s done so many things that other mmos don’t that i’m extremely thankful for as a solo/casual player.

It’s okay to share your opinions. You can even say I am wrong. I won’t get offended. I started the post to see what other players think, not to look for comrades.

Katalos.5038:

Staff Ele??? That’s what I am using. I often change to a wrong attunment or not changing at all because I am too panic T.T

I had that issue when I first started as well, just takes time.

Katalos.5038:

Are the Guild Halls limited to top guilds? Or every guilds will have their own guild hall?

Every guild should have access to their own hall. It will likely be easier for larger guilds to achieve the complete building of their hall than it would be for a smaller guild. However, from my understanding, the general thought in the CDI was that all guilds should have access to halls. This is how it was in GW1 as well. Even the smallest guild could eventually achieve a maxed out hall if they desired to work towards it, and I feel that’s as it should be.

shaman.1938:

Great you don’t mind KSing and being basically farmed by higher levels BUT the first MMO I played was Ultima online and I hated it and stopped playing within 2 weeks of it coming out as it was a serious drag to spend time building up just to be flattened by someone WAY beyond you.. TOO many players would get to the apex of levels or skills and then think it was great fun to beat on the nubes which quickly stops being fun and you quickly have fewer new players and the game quickly dies off.

GvG I would myself like to see implemented BUT so far not much call for it and even then I would hate to see it in open world unless limited for the same reason as posted above that you end up with “big dogs” killing nub characters just because (and honestly it often feels like trolling the newer players after a while and might be why this game has a much friendlier atmosphere compared to others)
Fast leveling has been a common practice SINCE WoW did it with Wrath xpac and GW1 it was pretty fast getting to max level BUT then the work really began anyway.
to the idea of world channels IF you mean world chat channels

No No and NO..
any kind of open channel ends up sometimes spammed by stupidity and frankly the idea of being apmmed by stupidity for someone NOT even in the same zone is just a BAD idea and guaranteed to be abused on a regular basis by some.

Honestly I don’t know if you will find HUGE PvP/GvG/WvW changes with HoT and I think even if there are there could be very well and exodus from the game with large changes as the players who are comfortable with the present set up find THEIR Tyria gone.

Maybe this game isn’t for you OR maybe we all just need to occasionally accept than NO game is ever everything we want it to be and learn to like tose things we like and try to ignore the things we don’t.

GL with you travels in game and elsewhere .. see you around (I am a terror for trying new games and i don’t think i have missed a title of an MMO since ultima online came out in 1997 and before that i played a text based game called genie).

FYI I hate the forum limitations

The game is for me, practically. It is not for the child living inside me though, lol.

What forum limitations?? You want to punch me in the face?? No, we are talking about technical limitations here.

Conaywea.5062:

i bet this guy gets bullied in real life

Nope. Not even once in my life. A few times in MMORPG T.T Then I joined a big guild and few top players helped me. Good old times, memories.

Katalos.5038:

… snip …

AreanaNet chose to make an MMO where in PvE, co-op play and it’s casual nature was the number one thing. This goes hand in hand with the no subscription requirement. They wanted an MMO where players wouldn’t be compelled to compete with one another except in PvP, which is a level playing field for gear and stats, or WvW.

And that underlying idea means any open world content (VS instanced party content) doesn’t require finely honed skills or elite gear to participate. ANet was looking to attract all the players who left other MMOs because of the compelling need to play every night usually doing objectives that weren’t their choice to do but was required to do simply to qualify to do the next big thing. And the more people they can get, people who don’t have time to play because, life, the more likely those players can drop a few bucks toward gems.

And unlike F2P MMOs, this game doesn’t have the same kind of restrictions that almost requires you to drop cash simply to get a functioning character.

It’s the non-casual players who are upset and annoyed at the “bland” nature of the game. The easy leveling, the lack of KS, mat node racing, the gear grind, open zone “dueling”, etc. They were attracted here by the lack of a subscription, not the casual nature of it. Maybe the rep of GW during it’s peak as a PvP oriented game made them think they would find the same thing here.

Leon Derge.5239:

The problems you have with sPvP in this game are the exact things I like about it.

As someone who has PvPed and still does PvP in WoW one the things I dislike most, actually, is the gear gap in PvP. It’s not just that it’s not fun to get curbstomped by someone in better gear, but it’s also that it’s simply not fun to curbstomp someone in bad gear. I never found it satisfying or awesome to beat an undergeared opponent in a stunlock on my paladin. In fact, my most memorable PvP moments in that game are from fighting equally or even slightly stronger geared opponents and beating them by simply playing better.

Also, having to “buy” gear is a huge hassle for players like me who like to experiment with different stat combinations to find what fits them the best. Admittedly I’d like more options for mixing and matching stats in sPvP then having a single stat item via amulets… But ah well, beggars can’t be choosers I suppose.

lol. We don’t have a lot of choices in gear for sPvP right? Correct me if I am wrong, I am still fairly new.

Sarisa.4731:

Katalos.5038:

Belzebu.3912:

Katalos.5038:

I did not play GW1 so I can’t say much. 8v8 or 10v10 in instances or open world?

In GW1, GvG was 8v8 in an instanced area.

Argh, instanced area :-/

In GW1, everything except towns was instanced (there were districts in towns, like overflows). It’s how everyone playing could be on the same server, but the network and server resources were low enough that it could function like that in 2005.

We have megaserver now. I am actually very impressed by this idea and technology.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Every guild should have access to their own hall. It will likely be easier for larger guilds to achieve the complete building of their hall than it would be for a smaller guild. However, from my understanding, the general thought in the CDI was that all guilds should have access to halls. This is how it was in GW1 as well. Even the smallest guild could eventually achieve a maxed out hall if they desired to work towards it, and I feel that’s as it should be.

Can the Guild Hall attacked by opponent guilds in GW1?

Katalos.5038:

Can the Guild Hall attacked by opponent guilds in GW1?

Nope.

EDIT: Guild Hall in GW1 was more of a place for the guild to meet, it didn’t have any real game mechanic attached to it.

Katalos.5038:

Leon Derge.5239:

The problems you have with sPvP in this game are the exact things I like about it.

As someone who has PvPed and still does PvP in WoW one the things I dislike most, actually, is the gear gap in PvP. It’s not just that it’s not fun to get curbstomped by someone in better gear, but it’s also that it’s simply not fun to curbstomp someone in bad gear. I never found it satisfying or awesome to beat an undergeared opponent in a stunlock on my paladin. In fact, my most memorable PvP moments in that game are from fighting equally or even slightly stronger geared opponents and beating them by simply playing better.

Also, having to “buy” gear is a huge hassle for players like me who like to experiment with different stat combinations to find what fits them the best. Admittedly I’d like more options for mixing and matching stats in sPvP then having a single stat item via amulets… But ah well, beggars can’t be choosers I suppose.

lol. We don’t have a lot of choices in gear for sPvP right? Correct me if I am wrong, I am still fairly new.

Basically, outside of weapon damage, traits and runes, all stats are funneled into a single armor piece. (amulet)

Admittedly there’s a lot of amulets to choose from, but even with all the stat combinations in the world it still pales in comparison to being able to pick and choose stats on an item-by-item basis.

Behellagh.1468:

AreanaNet chose to make an MMO where in PvE, co-op play and it’s casual nature was the number one thing. This goes hand in hand with the no subscription requirement. They wanted an MMO where players wouldn’t be compelled to compete with one another except in PvP, which is a level playing field for gear and stats, or WvW.

And that underlying idea means any open world content (VS instanced party content) doesn’t require finely honed skills or elite gear to participate. ANet was looking to attract all the players who left other MMOs because of the compelling need to play every night usually doing objectives that weren’t their choice to do but was required to do simply to qualify to do the next big thing. And the more people they can get, people who don’t have time to play because, life, the more likely those players can drop a few bucks toward gems.

And unlike F2P MMOs, this game doesn’t have the same kind of restrictions that almost requires you to drop cash simply to get a functioning character.

It’s the non-casual players who are upset and annoyed at the “bland” nature of the game. The easy leveling, the lack of KS, mat node racing, the gear grind, open zone “dueling”, etc. They were attracted here by the lack of a subscription, not the casual nature of it. Maybe the rep of GW during it’s peak as a PvP oriented game made them think they would find the same thing here.

Thank you for your explanations. They are very detail and answered all my questions regrading to why Anet has developed GW2 to be this casual.

I have to admit I was attracted here because of free sub and I am the non-casual player you are talking about, lol. However, my life does not allow me to a non-casual player T.T

I agree with most of your points. As an old school, previously hardcore MMO player, I really miss some of the competitive aspects of the genre, such as fighting the KS (doing most damage, last hit etc.). It encourages people to grind more or get better, whether through theorycrafting (or copying) a good build or spending a few more hours to get that piece of armor that fits what you need for stats.

I don’t miss PKing though. Like you, I have a love/hate relationship with it. I wish there was an option to activate it so I could classes other than what’s the FOTM meta and get some trash talk going with the people I kill or get killed by. I do this in WvW though

WvW is one thing you need a good hardcore guild to run with. Casual guilds don’t do WvW for a good reason, is that you need to grind gear and ranks, and spend a lot of time improving your skill. Otherwise, pugging it with that huge group there? You’ll get wrecked every time you’re found solo trying to run to your group.

I HATE how GW2 promotes casualness. There’s so SO many people out there who don’t know how their classes work and only know the skill rotations they see in youtube videos, without understanding why those rotations give the maximum damage output. When they come into WvW, I am able to kill them with a bunker guardian build that’s meant to absorb damage, not deal it, even in 1v2, 1v3 situations. In other games, they’d be punished pretty heavily for being so bad – losing EXP or items from their inventory, but here, they aren’t punished at all and can continue to stay bad. So sad…

The only reason I’m still playing GW2 is for the PvP and WvW. This is coming from a previously PvE only player in other games. There’s no challenge in PvE in GW2 unless you purposely handicap yourself, which is just absolutely silly.

We’ll see what HoT brings, but I’m not too hopeful based on what’s been revealed so far

I am honestly so glad that the game isnt like what you say you want in your OP(Well most of it!), im here because i played GW1, and if it had half of the stuff in it, that is in your OP, i would have left after the first day. GW1 was my first MMO And honestly i cant bring myself to play any game that has open world PVP, PKing, or anything like those systems. Its part of the reason i dont go to WVW, i do not like PVP games very much!

I do however want more challenging PVE on content, way way more challenging. Liadra the Dark was hard for me to do, but i did it after trying for days. Thats the stuff i want!

Katalos.5038:

Behellagh.1468:

AreanaNet chose to make an MMO where in PvE, co-op play and it’s casual nature was the number one thing. This goes hand in hand with the no subscription requirement. They wanted an MMO where players wouldn’t be compelled to compete with one another except in PvP, which is a level playing field for gear and stats, or WvW.

And that underlying idea means any open world content (VS instanced party content) doesn’t require finely honed skills or elite gear to participate. ANet was looking to attract all the players who left other MMOs because of the compelling need to play every night usually doing objectives that weren’t their choice to do but was required to do simply to qualify to do the next big thing. And the more people they can get, people who don’t have time to play because, life, the more likely those players can drop a few bucks toward gems.

And unlike F2P MMOs, this game doesn’t have the same kind of restrictions that almost requires you to drop cash simply to get a functioning character.

It’s the non-casual players who are upset and annoyed at the “bland” nature of the game. The easy leveling, the lack of KS, mat node racing, the gear grind, open zone “dueling”, etc. They were attracted here by the lack of a subscription, not the casual nature of it. Maybe the rep of GW during it’s peak as a PvP oriented game made them think they would find the same thing here.

Thank you for your explanations. They are very detail and answered all my questions regrading to why Anet has developed GW2 to be this casual.

I have to emit I was attracted here because of free sub and I am the non-casual player you are talking about, lol. However, my life does not allow me to a non-casual player T.T

That’s all my perspective from playing the game. I too was drawn here due to it’s pay once nature. I am not casual from a time spent playing perspective but casual because I physically can’t play when quick reflexes are required.

Katalos.5038:

Halan.7931:

Katalos.5038:

Mob training? Grind mobs to leveling?

From what i remember, it was possible (many years ago), to gather a giant pack of monsters without tagging them, then lead them to someone who accidentally attacks whem with AoE, they aggro at that person, he dies and loses EXP.

Yeah, I call it “luring”. It was a very important thing to learn in those old MMORPGs. I tried to do it in GW2, but I can only lure a few. The mobs either run back after a certain distance, or I die because I lured too much. LOL.

Or you end up being this guy:

http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php

Belzebu.3912:

Katalos.5038:

Can the Guild Hall attacked by opponent guilds in GW1?

Nope.

EDIT: Guild Hall in GW1 was more of a place for the guild to meet, it didn’t have any real game mechanic attached to it.

I wish we can in the Guild Hall in HoT :P

Reverence.6915:

I agree with most of your points. As an old school, previously hardcore MMO player, I really miss some of the competitive aspects of the genre, such as fighting the KS (doing most damage, last hit etc.). It encourages people to grind more or get better, whether through theorycrafting (or copying) a good build or spending a few more hours to get that piece of armor that fits what you need for stats.

I don’t miss PKing though. Like you, I have a love/hate relationship with it. I wish there was an option to activate it so I could classes other than what’s the FOTM meta and get some trash talk going with the people I kill or get killed by. I do this in WvW though

WvW is one thing you need a good hardcore guild to run with. Casual guilds don’t do WvW for a good reason, is that you need to grind gear and ranks, and spend a lot of time improving your skill. Otherwise, pugging it with that huge group there? You’ll get wrecked every time you’re found solo trying to run to your group.

I HATE how GW2 promotes casualness. There’s so SO many people out there who don’t know how their classes work and only know the skill rotations they see in youtube videos, without understanding why those rotations give the maximum damage output. When they come into WvW, I am able to kill them with a bunker guardian build that’s meant to absorb damage, not deal it, even in 1v2, 1v3 situations. In other games, they’d be punished pretty heavily for being so bad – losing EXP or items from their inventory, but here, they aren’t punished at all and can continue to stay bad. So sad…

The only reason I’m still playing GW2 is for the PvP and WvW. This is coming from a previously PvE only player in other games. There’s no challenge in PvE in GW2 unless you purposely handicap yourself, which is just absolutely silly.

We’ll see what HoT brings, but I’m not too hopeful based on what’s been revealed so far

Ha, someone that agrees with me. But both of us have to agree those old days are gone. Not only GW2, even in some other hardcore-er MMORPGs, it’s much easier now (PvE, PvP…) to retain players.

I love WvW but suck at it. Please don’t kill me :-( I am just a assaulter T.T

Dante.1763:

I am honestly so glad that the game isnt like what you say you want in your OP(Well most of it!), im here because i played GW1, and if it had half of the stuff in it, that is in your OP, i would have left after the first day. GW1 was my first MMO And honestly i cant bring myself to play any game that has open world PVP, PKing, or anything like those systems. Its part of the reason i dont go to WVW, i do not like PVP games very much!

I do however want more challenging PVE on content, way way more challenging. Liadra the Dark was hard for me to do, but i did it after trying for days. Thats the stuff i want!

I wish to see more PvE contents too (saying from someone that is not even lvl 80 yet).

Behellagh.1468:

Katalos.5038:

Behellagh.1468:

AreanaNet chose to make an MMO where in PvE, co-op play and it’s casual nature was the number one thing. This goes hand in hand with the no subscription requirement. They wanted an MMO where players wouldn’t be compelled to compete with one another except in PvP, which is a level playing field for gear and stats, or WvW.

And that underlying idea means any open world content (VS instanced party content) doesn’t require finely honed skills or elite gear to participate. ANet was looking to attract all the players who left other MMOs because of the compelling need to play every night usually doing objectives that weren’t their choice to do but was required to do simply to qualify to do the next big thing. And the more people they can get, people who don’t have time to play because, life, the more likely those players can drop a few bucks toward gems.

And unlike F2P MMOs, this game doesn’t have the same kind of restrictions that almost requires you to drop cash simply to get a functioning character.

It’s the non-casual players who are upset and annoyed at the “bland” nature of the game. The easy leveling, the lack of KS, mat node racing, the gear grind, open zone “dueling”, etc. They were attracted here by the lack of a subscription, not the casual nature of it. Maybe the rep of GW during it’s peak as a PvP oriented game made them think they would find the same thing here.

Thank you for your explanations. They are very detail and answered all my questions regrading to why Anet has developed GW2 to be this casual.

I have to emit I was attracted here because of free sub and I am the non-casual player you are talking about, lol. However, my life does not allow me to a non-casual player T.T

That’s all my perspective from playing the game. I too was drawn here due to it’s pay once nature. I am not casual from a time spent playing perspective but casual because I physically can’t play when quick reflexes are required.

admit*

I am casual from a time spent perspective, but not casual from the gameplay perspective.

Huggywuggles.2814:

Katalos.5038:

Halan.7931:

Katalos.5038:

Mob training? Grind mobs to leveling?

From what i remember, it was possible (many years ago), to gather a giant pack of monsters without tagging them, then lead them to someone who accidentally attacks whem with AoE, they aggro at that person, he dies and loses EXP.

Yeah, I call it “luring”. It was a very important thing to learn in those old MMORPGs. I tried to do it in GW2, but I can only lure a few. The mobs either run back after a certain distance, or I die because I lured too much. LOL.

Or you end up being this guy:

http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php

Sorry, didn’t read. Too long and the website is simply too ugly to bear with.

The market hasn’t changed, it’s as polarized as ever. Even back in the day some people played runescape and everquest and others played dark age of camelot and other pvp centric games. There always was a huge massive polarization in gaming between competitive player versus player and player versus environment.

The high competitive players shifted to games like LoL and DotA where skill is the prime factor as those high competitive players would rather actions speak for themselves. Settle it on the battlefield types.

The high environment types choose to do away with the whole ordeal, there has been huge success in games that mixed the two. Games like WoW where there was a fairly even focus on both which catered to the mass middle crowd but was disliked by both extremes.

Guild Wars was a game favored by both extremes and not the middle. The high competitive crowd never liked leveling and always complained about needing gear in other games and here they don’t need any of it. They don’t need to level and gear doesn’t matter. They like it, and the pve side extremes always hated world pvp and all that other stuff that they felt “forced” into. Which this takes all that away, it offers a large and diverse game and community without feeling forced to pvp.

asking for kill steal makes me want to kill OP

heartless.6803:

The market hasn’t changed, it’s as polarized as ever. Even back in the day some people played runescape and everquest and others played dark age of camelot and other pvp centric games. There always was a huge massive polarization in gaming between competitive player versus player and player versus environment.

The high competitive players shifted to games like LoL and DotA where skill is the prime factor as those high competitive players would rather actions speak for themselves. Settle it on the battlefield types.

The high environment types choose to do away with the whole ordeal, there has been huge success in games that mixed the two. Games like WoW where there was a fairly even focus on both which catered to the mass middle crowd but was disliked by both extremes.

Guild Wars was a game favored by both extremes and not the middle. The high competitive crowd never liked leveling and always complained about needing gear in other games and here they don’t need any of it. They don’t need to level and gear doesn’t matter. They like it, and the pve side extremes always hated world pvp and all that other stuff that they felt “forced” into. Which this takes all that away, it offers a large and diverse game and community without feeling forced to pvp.

Thank you for categorizing the gamers. I have not thought in this way before. Sounds like I am the middle guy, but I still enjoy GW2 :-)

Relshdan.6854:

asking for kill steal makes me want to kill OP

I did not ask for kill steal.

Katalos.5038:

Relshdan.6854:

asking for kill steal makes me want to kill OP

I did not ask for kill steal.

“No KS
Another reason Tyria is so peaceful. I am having a love hate feeling with this setting. I have played enough MMORPGs to know how annoying KS can be. However, without KS, the PvE gameplay feels empty. I don’t have to find a group, I can just drop by any events and walk away anytime I like. I even saw a lot of players in the forum say they simply AFK and auto attack the world bosses. Where is the fun in that???”

go away…leave

Katalos.5038:

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

I want to feel that I’ve “completed” a game within 50-80 hours(not 100% it. just completing it. in gw2 terms it would be reaching 80 and getting a full set of exotics, for me). and yes, I realize that’s not typical for mmos, but it’s still what I’d prefer.

50-80 hours to 80 and full set of exotics??? and yet here I am, 120 hours, level 70.

it just depends on what gamemode you play I ’spose. it took me about 40 hours to reach 80, and since levels 40 through 80 were done via wvw, i already had the currency for exotic gear

and i’m not saying you’re wrong because it’s an opinion. subjective things are never wrong in my eyes. I can state that I dislike your viewpoint (i would be frustrated if gw2 had these changes made) but i wouldn’t say you’re wrong :P

@Relshdan, Katalos’s perspective is that PvE among players is a world of rainbows and unicorns (sometimes literally) compared to many other MMOs with defined factions as well as a hyper competitiveness toward mat nodes/critters and to him it’s odd to see an MMO world where this isn’t occurring at all.

He’s not asking for KSing but is pointing out that this world is a very different place than they ones he came from and seems empty because of it. It’s the old SciFi trope of someone from a kill or be killed world suddenly finding themselves in our relatively peaceful world and needing to cope.

Katalos.5038:

• sPvP
  All players are scaled up to level 80 and equipped with the same gear in PvP instances. It feels like a sport or board game here, seriously. So fair, so boring. I like games that require player skills, like Monster Hunter. However, I dislike games that require only players skills, like DotA, LOL and CS. I prefer to be destroyed by some old players with good gears rather than having so much fairness in PvP. Low level or weakly geared players are supposed to be defeated by older players easily (even I am the low level guy here). That said, sPvP is a perfect platform for competitions or leaderboard.

• No open world PvP
  Probably the main reason why Tyria is so peaceful.

• No KS
  Another reason Tyria is so peaceful. I am having a love hate feeling with this setting. I have played enough MMORPGs to know how annoying KS can be. However, without KS, the PvE gameplay feels empty. I don’t have to find a group, I can just drop by any events and walk away anytime I like. I even saw a lot of players in the forum say they simply AFK and auto attack the world bosses. Where is the fun in that???

• No GvG
  WHY??? I am looking for something like the Band of Brothers war in EVE Online. I want big guild wars (it’s fine even I am not part of the war, I want to at least see something like this!!).

• Easy leveling
  I learnt this from my previous post, “GW2 leveling is way too fast”. Now I understand why leveling in GW2 is so fast. “It unlocks all the contents for all the players quickly, so every players can play all the contents in the game.”. That’s my conclusion from my previous post. I am actually pretty shocked by this answer. “Access to all the contents”?? Isn’t this an MMORPG? From my previous MMORPGs experience, only top ranked or top level players can access to “all the contents” in the game. Why make all players accessible to all the contents in the game? It makes GW2 feels like a Single Player RPG with multiplayer feature enabled.

• No world channel
  This is one of the features I like the most in MMORPG. This is where the arguments happened and where the guild wars started. I love watching those fights. However in GW2, world channel is not there. I guess the reason is “players will spam here and argue here, we don’t want this to affect other players”. Yeah, I can play Single Player games if I don’t want to affect by other players.

• Conclusion
  All these settings make me feel like Anet is trying their best to make the game as easy as possible for the players. They don’t want players to feel any discomforts throughout the gameplay. You can have access to all gameplay, no one can disturb you, you won’t be bullied by old players, you can play casually and still get stuffs. In short, have fun.

…

ps. I am looking forward to Guild Halls in HoT (limited guild halls to be claimed only by strong guilds??). I hope it will turn Tyria into a war zone. * evil laugh *

• sPvP – Anet has dreams of making this an esport. Can’t do that if it’s badly imbalanced.
• No open world PvP – WvW and EotM fill this role in GW2. Try roaming there.
• No Kill Stealing – If you are looking for PvE with an edge of uncertainty, try EotM.
• No GvG – Yea, this should be added. At least let guilds rent private OS maps or something.
• Easy leveling – GW2 is designed such that leveling and ‘end game’ are much the same. It’s just a different philosophy; not intended to be a ‘level grind’ game. Regarding ‘only top players access all content’: Did you know that less than 5% of vanilla WoW players ever saw the inside of Molten Core (not completed, just entered)? That’s a lot of wasted development time. MMORPG design philosophies have changed as a result.
• No world channel – Taking enjoyment from watching others meltdown is a common human failing; it’s not a flaw in the game. Try reality TV.
• Conclusion – Yes, the game is deliberately designed to minimize a player’s opportunity to infringe on other players’ fun.

Most people don’t enjoy flame wars, trolling and drama-fests, especially when someone else can inflict them involuntarily. Therefore, game design has shifted. There are still sandbox games like EVE and Archage if that’s what you want.

Katalos.5038:

SNIP
I am casual from a time spent perspective, but not casual from the gameplay perspective.

What you mentioned in your initial post as desirable attributes from a game have absolutely no correlation to “casual” atmosphere. A game can have all of those features and be “casual”-friendly through other systems which force players to be both aggressive but also play on varying schedules/time allotments.

The selling points of this game were announced in the manifesto even before this game launched in 2012. It is meant to be a game where players can achieve the same goals and do so in any way they please and not hit obstructions brought on my mechanics which allow for griefing, harassment, etc. The game is meant to be purely fun with no specified model all players need to go through to succeed.

I’ve GM’ed for a F2P open-PvP player-run MMO for several years, a once-wildly popular Korean import which satisfies the criteria you mentioned above in almost every regard.
While I was a player for the game (later inducted as staff for my community contributions), I clocked in around ten thousand hours playing over almost a decade. I participated in the beta events and have seen that game deteriorate from its own systems since. You may like some of those features, but it is simple fact that those types of systems fail in the western market. I was able to watch user statistics internally for the global and Korean versions of the game, and I can confidently say that such systems are substantially less lucrative and much more poorly received in the west versus Asian markets.

In fact, what has made GW2 so successful is its exact detachment from the more traditional MMO approach; it’s not grindy, it’s not extremely complicated, it’s not at all a treadmill for power that breaks under power creep, and it’s not a full-time job to be the best player.

Your observations are contradictory. sPvP is meant to be as competitive as possible. That’s why there are tournaments, and it’s why everything is to “fair.” It’s intended to be. Thus, it raises the difficulty of PvP. There is no obliteration of your enemies from gear discrepancies (unless you’re playing an uplevel in WvW, but that’s part of WvW). In aforementioned Korean title, gear dictated the success of the player almost entirely. Some players had such ridiculous stats that auto attacks could one-shot full tanks in reasonable/end-game gear tiers. PvP’ing against those guilds is unfun and frankly, near impossible to catch up to.

PvE is as easy as you want it to be. Video games are becoming more mainstream and as such accessibility needs to be considered. There are players with illnesses and physical disabilities that can overcome the PvE content in the game. If you want hard mode because you feel the game is too easy, I’ll make the same suggestion to you as I did to someone else:

Equip a Level 1 white weapon, remove all armor and trinkets, remove all traits, utility skills, and heals. Have fun. Ordinary mobs are now the epic encounters you desire.

HoT plans on releasing level 80-only content with the intent of being more challenging. It’s still open-world, making it accessible, as other players can step in and help, but that’s about all the support it’ll offer for being easy.

And it’s those systems that promote that kind of behavior and ultimately make said games go under. There is a niche market, as people are entitled to have different preferences, but GW2 is in for the big consumer base and to make the big bucks. Sorry, but your open-PvP/PK games aren’t going to ever get that.

The only thing in your posts that I have seen as being agreeable is that this game does lack GvG. While this is partially coming in HoT with the Stronghold mode, I would like to see a free-form arena copying the WvW model (this way characters are the members as they are and represent the successes/monetary power/influence of their guilds and not copies of what builds are in the meta necessarily).

ANet isn’t being so protective so much as they are being smart. I once believed that open-PK and totally-player-driven systems were the future of MMO’s, but since working on projects that use these systems, unless extremely well-monitored, like CCP’s EVE, they set the game up for catastrophic failure, and even then, EVE has many countermeasures to prevent truly open-PK and griefing for those who just want to fly around and enjoy the game to whatever level of safety they wish.

Go play WoW of the myriad of other clones you are referring to.

Katalos.5038:

Ha, someone that agrees with me. But both of us have to agree those old days are gone. Not only GW2, even in some other hardcore-er MMORPGs, it’s much easier now (PvE, PvP…) to retain players.

I love WvW but suck at it. Please don’t kill me :-( I am just a assaulter T.T

There’s a few games on the horizon that appeal to me, such as Blade and Soul or Black Desert. Having no challenging content isn’t a big turn off for me, but there needs to be a variety of content, which GW2 lacks.

Like I said in my previous post, you need to join a hardcore guild to get good at WvW. Doing it otherwise is just asking to be killed again and again, or just tag along with the giant zerg mindlessly karma training

I think some of the OP’s points are valid, in the sense that the degree to which they have been implemented in GW2 is somewhat extreme. For example,

OP’s complaint about sPvP is answered in GW2’s World vs World game mode. But I would like to see the lockdown on the use of utility items found in PvE removed from WvW to increase the intentional imbalance factor. Also, a bigger difference between Exotic and Ascended/Legendary equipment statistics.

There should definitely be a Guild vs Guild game mode added within the sPvP model.

Easy leveling is fine, provided that there truly is difficult, challenging content for max level players afterward. There isn’t enough at the moment.

Relshdan.6854:

Katalos.5038:

Relshdan.6854:

asking for kill steal makes me want to kill OP

I did not ask for kill steal.

“No KS
Another reason Tyria is so peaceful. I am having a love hate feeling with this setting. I have played enough MMORPGs to know how annoying KS can be. However, without KS, the PvE gameplay feels empty. I don’t have to find a group, I can just drop by any events and walk away anytime I like. I even saw a lot of players in the forum say they simply AFK and auto attack the world bosses. Where is the fun in that???”

go away…leave

You clearly can’t comprehend what I said in there and I am not going to explain it either because no one seems to have problem understanding it except you.

Bye.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

Katalos.5038:

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

I want to feel that I’ve “completed” a game within 50-80 hours(not 100% it. just completing it. in gw2 terms it would be reaching 80 and getting a full set of exotics, for me). and yes, I realize that’s not typical for mmos, but it’s still what I’d prefer.

50-80 hours to 80 and full set of exotics??? and yet here I am, 120 hours, level 70.

it just depends on what gamemode you play I ’spose. it took me about 40 hours to reach 80, and since levels 40 through 80 were done via wvw, i already had the currency for exotic gear

and i’m not saying you’re wrong because it’s an opinion. subjective things are never wrong in my eyes. I can state that I dislike your viewpoint (i would be frustrated if gw2 had these changes made) but i wouldn’t say you’re wrong :P

I am leveling through exploring. I WvW for fun and die quite often so not too much leveling there :C

Behellagh.1468:

@Relshdan, Katalos’s perspective is that PvE among players is a world of rainbows and unicorns (sometimes literally) compared to many other MMOs with defined factions as well as a hyper competitiveness toward mat nodes/critters and to him it’s odd to see an MMO world where this isn’t occurring at all.

He’s not asking for KSing but is pointing out that this world is a very different place than they ones he came from and seems empty because of it. It’s the old SciFi trope of someone from a kill or be killed world suddenly finding themselves in our relatively peaceful world and needing to cope.

Thank you!!! Thank you!!! * Cry in Japanese *

GreyWraith.8394:

Did you know that less than 5% of vanilla WoW players ever saw the inside of Molten Core (not completed, just entered)? That’s a lot of wasted development time. MMORPG design philosophies have changed as a result.

No, I did not know that. I don’t even know what Molten Core is. However, that sounds very exciting to me. Only 5% of the players saw it and no one has cleared it yet. It feels very prestige. It feels like Raftel (if you watch/read One Piece). According to my play style, I will probably never reach it, but I still like to have such a place exists in the game. So, after a few months/years, a forum post with the title “Molten Core is cleared!!!!!” will be posted. It will be on the news, on reddit, and on everywhere. That player will be a legend. That’s what I would like to see, even without me involved in it (of course it is much cooler if I am).

You bought up a point from the developer perspective. Yes, I agree. I am a programmer too. That is a waste of time. They could have developed other contents for the majority of the players instead of this content that meant only for hardcore players, who are the minority. You are right from this perspective.

However, I am viewing this issue as an adventurer of Tyria. When I am playing an MMORPG, I actually role-play my character and immerse myself into the world (that’s why I don’t like the idea of multiple characters). I wish there is a place that all adventures wish to reach, but only very few did. The very few did came out with the most prestige loot you can ever get in land of Tyria. This is what I wish to see.

Katalos.5038:

So, here are what I have noticed after playing GW2 for 120 hours and consistent visit to reddit and this official forum.

Tyria is too peaceful. There aren’t arguments between players and there aren’t big guilds fighting against each others. After slowly learning about the system of GW2, I am shocked by how protective the system is.

• sPvP
  All players are scaled up to level 80 and equipped with the same gear in PvP instances. It feels like a sport or board game here, seriously. So fair, so boring. I like games that require player skills, like Monster Hunter. However, I dislike games that require only players skills, like DotA, LOL and CS. I prefer to be destroyed by some old players with good gears rather than having so much fairness in PvP. Low level or weakly geared players are supposed to be defeated by older players easily (even I am the low level guy here). That said, sPvP is a perfect platform for competitions or leaderboard.

I see this completely opposite from you. New players in any game always have to earn the experience and skill to measure up to veterans. However, in GW2 spvp, old but unskilled players can no longer get carried by their gear. They can and will get stomped by players who play better, regardless of experience. In my opinion this makes spvp far less protective since you have to keep working to stay “good”.

There are other games to suit your tastes

Reverence.6915:

Katalos.5038:

Ha, someone that agrees with me. But both of us have to agree those old days are gone. Not only GW2, even in some other hardcore-er MMORPGs, it’s much easier now (PvE, PvP…) to retain players.

I love WvW but suck at it. Please don’t kill me :-( I am just a assaulter T.T

There’s a few games on the horizon that appeal to me, such as Blade and Soul or Black Desert. Having no challenging content isn’t a big turn off for me, but there needs to be a variety of content, which GW2 lacks.

Like I said in my previous post, you need to join a hardcore guild to get good at WvW. Doing it otherwise is just asking to be killed again and again, or just tag along with the giant zerg mindlessly karma training

Thank you for your advice. I am already in a guild that is very active in WvW (I actually got invited while running with a zerg in WvW when I was only ~lvl 20).

Pure Heart.1456:

Also, a bigger difference between Exotic and Ascended/Legendary equipment statistics.

Easy leveling is fine, provided that there truly is difficult, challenging content for max level players afterward. There isn’t enough at the moment.

+1

The lack of all of that is why I enjoy GW2. I have very little patience for childish arguments, when I’m playing, I just want to play without necessarily having to deal with a kid who has nothing better to do than bully new players who are still learning how to play. I like collaborating and meeting other players when organizing events together, and it’s okay if you don’t find it appealing, but that doesn’t mean ANet’s “protectiveness”, as you put it, is necessarily wrong. GW2 is simply meant to appeal to a different crowd, and so far, it’s working.

Katalos.5038:

• Easy leveling
  I learnt this from my previous post, “GW2 leveling is way too fast”. Now I understand why leveling in GW2 is so fast. “It unlocks all the contents for all the players quickly, so every players can play all the contents in the game.”. That’s my conclusion from my previous post. I am actually pretty shocked by this answer. “Access to all the contents”?? Isn’t this an MMORPG? From my previous MMORPGs experience, only top ranked or top level players can access to “all the contents” in the game. Why make all players accessible to all the contents in the game? It makes GW2 feels like a Single Player RPG with multiplayer feature enabled.

Well then your experience with MMORPGs is limited. You are speaking of the pure progression themepark mmo, where as this is nothing new to sandbox games at all. GW2 just does the themepark a little differently, with some afterthought of a sandbox. Fast levleing is nothing new, more of the problem here is it’s still mostly easy once you do get into lvl80 zones. Didn’t start that way, but over time most stuff got hit with the casual kitty hammer. HoT is suppose to be more challenging, but we’ll see…

Yeah, I’m glad that GW2 (and the other games I play) aren’t anything like the old MMOs. I like the relaxed atmosphere of this game.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Yeah, I’m glad that GW2 (and the other games I play) aren’t anything like the old MMOs. I like the relaxed atmosphere of this game.

Well I don’t think that they should all be the same. Like in those horrible old mmo’s (hah), I played both UO and EQ1 (launch state). Loved them both, especially because they were both so very different to each other. I currently still play mainly two mmo’s, both as different as day and deep space night where no one can hear your screams as you are awoxed and looted. I don’t need or want one to be like the other, or like when UO started to become gear dependent like EQ1, I eventually ended my UO sub; didn’t need a second EQ1. If you don’t like something, leave, don;t try to make it like your other game which you will eventually come to the same conclusion and walk away.

I think you have the wrong question, OP. The question is why has it taken the MMO genre so long to make obvious changes that would support a percentage of the MMO genre. Surely on almost every MMO forum I’ve been on, there have been fights between the hard core people and the “carebears”. And there are always a lot of the latter. Like me.

Other games never supported me and this one does. Why did Anet design a game that no one else designed? Because they saw the niche and entered it, because that’s what smart businesses do. They see something missing and fill that need.

At least it’s a lot smarter than making the same game as everyone else and then having to split their player base infinitely with people providing a very similar product. I’m here because no other MMO gives me what this game gives me.

lordkrall.7241:

So.. basically why isn’t Guild Wars 2 a completely different game? Have you ever thought that Guild Wars 2 was simply not for you?

Have you ever thought that people just want to express their opinions and suggestions? Stop being so defensive of GW2, and let others share their thoughts without a rebuke from those who see GW2 as “flawless”.

play tera it has pk servers players dont get their own loot has gvg open world pvp
insanely lengthy leveling and all that anoying stuff you like

Huggywuggles.2814:

Or you end up being this guy:

http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php

I REMEMBER FANSY! Ahhh, those were the days. Of course, he was on an open PVP server (everyone vs everyone), exploiting a game mechanic (very low level players couldn’t be attacked) to counterattack the uber-high-level PK’ers who would dominate the nooblets just trying to grind XP. So…. yeah. Game mechanics fail in every direction there. But Fansy was still my hero.

Katalos.5038:

Sorry, didn’t read. Too long and the website is simply too ugly to bear with.

You’re missing out on one of the defining moments of gaming history. Your loss.

nexxe.7081:

lordkrall.7241:

So.. basically why isn’t Guild Wars 2 a completely different game? Have you ever thought that Guild Wars 2 was simply not for you?

Have you ever thought that people just want to express their opinions and suggestions? Stop being so defensive of GW2, and let others share their thoughts without a rebuke from those who see GW2 as “flawless”.

I didn’t read his post as being defensive or rude to the OP. I thought he sincerely meant what he said: perhaps GW2 is simply not for the OP. It’s not the right game for everyone, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

I’m not sure the OP is actually complaining, so much as asking a question. I can see how it can come off as a complaint, but I chose not to take it that way.